Книги, похожие на «David Scott, Leviathan: The Rise of Britain as a World Power»

The ebook of the critically acclaimed popular history book: the story of the South Sea Bubble which in Balen’s hands becomes a morality tale for our times. A classic collision of political ambition, mercenary greed and financial revolution.The early years of the 18th-century produced two great monuments: one, Christopher Wren’s new cathedral of St Paul’s, an enduring testament to principled craft and masterful construction; the other, an empty fraud of such magnitude that its collapse threatened to overturn monarchies and governments. Its failure delayed the introduction of modern market economies by two generations. Yet the full scale of this monumental deceit was quietly covered up and hidden, its enduring legacy a poorly understood colloquialism: the South Sea Bubble.It was all planned by one ambitious promoter, who had decided to launch ‘a company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is’. This eighteenth-century mission statement has now acquired an almost uncanny resonance: these words could aptly have been applied to the bursting of the internet bubble and the collapse of Enron. With the financial scandals that have beset global companies recently, such as Rank Xerox and Worldcom, this tale is all the more relevant today.Balen reveals the full story of corruption and scandal that attended the birth of the first shareholder economy, and with it uncovers a parable for our times.Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.

As we become ever-more aware of how our governments “eavesdrop” on our conversations, here is a gripping exploration of this unknown realm of the British secret service: Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ).GCHQ is the successor to the famous Bletchley Park wartime code-breaking organisation and is the largest and most secretive intelligence organisation in the country. During the war, it commanded more staff than MI5 and MI6 combined and has produced a number of intelligence triumphs as well as some notable failures. Since the end of the Cold War, it has played a pivotal role in shaping Britain's secret state. Still, we know almost nothing about it.In this ground-breaking book, Richard J. Aldrich traces GCHQ's evolvement from a wartime code breaking operation based in the Bedfordshire countryside to one of the world's leading espionage organisations. Focusing in part on GCHQ's remarkably intimate relationship with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA), Aldrich also examines both the impact of the Second World War on GCHQ and the breakthroughs made after the war was over.Today's GCHQ struggles with some of the most difficult issues of our time. A leading force of the state's security efforts against militant terrorist organisations like Al-Qaeda, they are also involved in fundamental issues that will mould the future of British society. Compelling and revelatory, Aldrich’s book is espionage writing of the utmost importance.